A Duchess and her daughter watch in disgust as a starving orphan begs them for help. The orphan never forgot that they ignored him as a constable beat him to within an inch of his life, vowing that revenge would one day be his. A decade later, fate gave him that chance, bringing him face to face once more with Cecilia, daughter of the Duchess.

Cecilia, now a beautiful young woman, only finds out the true identity of her new fiancé when it is too late to turn back from a wedding that might destroy both her and her family.

Marcus has taken his time, using his firm hand and dominating presence to gradually break Cecilia down. All that’s left to do to complete his revenge is to turn her into a helpless little girl.

He’s planned everything down to the finest detail, nothing can possibly go wrong, or so he thinks. For as he helps her climb into a diaper and prepares her for yet another spanking, he realises there was one thing he did not plan for, falling in love with his little Cecilia.

A broken daughter... When Lady Christine Bouchier’s parents died, she thought their cruel ways had died with them. But when she attends the reading of their will, she discovers they have one final blow to strike. To gain her inheritance, she must fulfil her childhood promise and marry the depraved Duke of Malton.

A damaged Lord... James Thaw, Duke of Malton, does not remember or care for the childhood pledge he made. Having no intention of settling down with a wife, he sets about pushing Christine away with his open hand and sharp tongue. But as his new little seems happy to submit to all of his demands, he realises if he is to regain his freedom, he must force this innocent girl deeper into the depths of depravity than he’s ever dared before.

At first, Christine only puts up with her master’s wicked behaviour in order to gain her inheritance, surviving the diapers, the shaving, and the breast milk despite her shame. But just as she is beginning to fall for him, he takes a spanking too far and she is forced to make a decision. Will she leave her new master and forfeit her fortune or risk her life to make him see that it is not pushing her away that will mend his broken heart but letting in a little love.

The Duke and His Little contains age play, spanking, humiliation and power exchange.

CAPTURED – CHAPTER ONE

London, 1820

Marcus sprinted between the two flower sellers, refusing to look back at the chasing constable. Around another corner and he was deep into the marketplace, weaving between the stalls, the smells of fresh bread and sweetmeats assailing his nostrils. “Stop that boy!” the constable cried as he ran on.

The place was busy enough to work in his favour. If it had been rainy or cold, the crowd would have been thinner and someone would no doubt have stuck out an ankle and sent him crashing to the ground, doing their civic duty in apprehending a violent felon. Ten years old and that was all he was in the eyes of the law. Not a starving orphan, not a miserable, emaciated pauper. No, he had fought back once, when three drunken constables had snatched an apple from his sister’s hand and now he was marked as a violent felon forevermore. The injustice of it no longer enraged him, life in all its cruelty had long ceased to surprise him since she had died. What concerned him was the likelihood of a death sentence if he was brought up before a magistrate for the second time in a year.

He would not have even taken the bread if he had not been starving although he knew that was no defence. He could almost feel the noose tightening around his neck, just as it had his father before he even knew what ‘hanged,’ meant. His mother having died in childbirth, his father was all the family he had. When he had been hanged, Marcus was left alone, surviving on his wits and what little food he had been able to steal.

Hunger had become as much a part of him as his unruly black hair and dark eyes, he had no idea what it would feel like to be without it. When he’d seen the loaves cooling by that window, he had been unable to resist, the smell alone enough to send his stomach into a state of hysteria within him. It was the first time he had stolen from a house instead of a stall and that was why panic spurred him on so. To be caught stealing a loaf of bread meant hard labour for anything between three days and three months. But to be a violent felon according to the law, caught reaching into a window to steal from inside. Well, that was burglary and burglary was a capital offence.

The market helped him gain some distance from the constable, his youthful frame better able to dodge between the mass of people buying and selling, the brute chasing forced to bludgeon his way through to keep up. As long as the stalls held out he might be able to lose him.

It was not to be. All too soon, he reached the last of the stalls and then he was out in the open again. To his left the street widened and the crowds dissipated. He knew that within minutes he would be caught. But to his right, there lay the possibility of salvation. There was a carriage moving slowly along the road and in front of it was a packhorse and cart. Perfect.

The man driving the packhorse seemed in no hurry to make room for the carriage, assiduously ignoring the driver behind him, the shaken fists and curses bouncing off him as he walked slowly on.

“Out of the way you imbecile,” the carriage driver called out. “Do you not know who it is behind you?”

Marcus didn’t care who was in the carriage. All he cared about was the straw piled high on the back of the cart. It would serve as the perfect hiding place, if only he could get there before the constable reached the end of the market. If he could, there was a good chance he would get away with both his liberty and the ill gotten loaf gripped tightly in his hand. He had seconds to get there.

From the minute he had smelt the bread, it had proved impossible to resist. He had not eaten for two days, having remained in hiding since a constable had spied him lifting an apple from a street vendor and chased him into the rookery by the river. The other boys had warned him he was being sought by name, never a good sign. They told him he had better lie low for a while and he took their advice, having no wish to be caught again. He’d lasted as long as he could, hidden in the back of the old candle workshop, only the stink of tallow and the scratching of rats for company until hunger had at last forced him out. Two days. He was certain it was long enough. Not only that but any longer hiding in there and he had no doubt he’d have tried to eat the solidified drops of tallow that coated the floor. He had to find food.

It was the very first street he had walked down that he saw them, a row of loaves left by an open window. Surely a baker that foolish deserved to have one taken? Besides, they had six cooling there, that was just greedy. They could spare one for a starving child. But as he’d reached in, an arm had reached out, taking him by the wrist. A face appeared a second later, an enormous greasy haired face that growled like a dog. “Got you, you little thief,” the baker had said.

Marcus was still fighting to free himself when the constable appeared. With a quick intake of breath, he’d spat into the baker’s face, causing him to loosen his grip just long enough.

“Thief!” the baker screamed. “Thief!” The constable answered the call, sprinting down the street as Marcus ran, the loaf gripped tightly in his hand. “Stop there,” the constable called out, truncheon already in hand. Marcus had ignored him, putting on a fresh spurt of speed as he twisted deeper into the narrow alleyways of the rookery. He felt sure he would lose him especially as the constables rarely delved this deep from the main thoroughfares unless in substantial numbers. But not this one. The man was like a bloodhound, never seeming more than a few yards behind him, never tiring, never stopping. Marcus was weak from lack of food and his legs felt leaden with fatigue. The constable grew closer and only the thought of being caught gave the fox faster legs than the hound. He had run on, back out of the rookery and into the market, deliberately heading there to vanish amongst the crowds. But the constable was too close, never giving him a chance. The cart was his last hope.

Sprinting down the street, he leapt over a scummy pool of mud, spun round the side of the packhorse and was about to dive into the mountain of straw when a hand descended on his collar, gripping him tightly.

“What the devil do you think you’re up to?” the cart owner asked, his face bright red from either exertion or alcohol, or perhaps both.

“Nothing sir,” Marcus replied, twisting his shoulder free and turning to the carriage. He looked up at it in time to see two imperious faces staring back at him. The first belonged to a middle aged woman who seemed disgusted by the very sight of him. The second belonged to a girl no older than him, her face a vision of youthful beauty, sparkling blue eyes looking out from behind lustrous blonde curls. Her features did not change as she peered down impassively at his pleading figure. She might as well have been looking at the pile of straw for all the emotion she displayed.

“Help,” he cried. “Hide me, please. I beg you.”

The older woman recoiled at his voice, acting as if he were a sewer rat that had somehow attained the power of speech, no less repulsive for that. “You are a slubberdegullion,” she said, accentuating each syllable with disgust. “Get away from me.”

Marcus ignored her and reached for the door handle. If he could just get inside for long enough, the constable might run on and then he could be away. He was about to turn the handle when someone grabbed him from behind and hurled him to the ground. He landed with a sickening thump in the mud, the wind knocked out of his lungs, the loaf knocked from his hand. He saw from the corner of his eye the bread as it spun away and landed directly under one of the horses that led the carriage. A single movement of a hoof and the bread was flattened beyond recognition.

“No!” Marcus gasped, his hand outstretched towards it. He lashed out at the arm on him, turning and finding himself looking into the eyes of the constable. “Good day constable,” he managed to say though his breathless lungs made the words little more than a whisper. “You owe me a loaf of bread,” he added, managing a weak smile as he got to his feet, already turning to run for it once more.

The truncheon hit him in the stomach before he could react. He doubled over in pain and as he did so, another blow struck his forehead, sending him staggering backwards, whiteness appearing before his eyes, pain spreading through him from the force of the impact. He blinked and the constable struck him again, this time on his right shoulder, sending him sinking down to his knees.

“Get up,” the constable grunted, grabbing him by the armpits and pulling him away from the carriage. “I know you, Marcus. You’re coming with me you little bludger.”

Marcus glanced up at the carriage window, as if to ask for help that he knew in his heart would not be offered. The two occupants continued to stare pitilessly at him as he was dragged away down the street. He swooned as nausea washed over him but the constable did not seem to care, merely tightening his grip as he pulled him away.

Marcus sank into a stupor, though still aware of being dragged along the street, his feet bumping over the rough cobbles as his eyes slowly closed until he soon knew nothing at all.

The last thing he thought about before he fell unconscious was not the fear of the gallows, nor of being transported, though both were distinct possibilities. It was instead the faces of the two women in the carriage, the way they had looked at him. They had seen him as something dangerous and disgusting at the same time, something to be feared or preferably crushed, like a flea on a beloved dog, killed at once without pity before it could do any real damage. They hated him. Not just him, but everyone like him. Theirs was a world that he would never know. They only saw a thief in the hands of the law, not a starving boy doing whatever it took to survive.

After it was all over, years later, he often recalled that day. He thought about the hatred he had felt for the two of them, the desire for revenge that had swelled up in him and taken over his very soul. He wanted so desperately to go back and speak to his younger self, tell him to let it go, that the desire for revenge would consume him and almost destroy not just his own life but would bring misery to many others. But then he would sit back and remind himself that if that were possible, if he could go back and choose not to exact his revenge, he would never have met the love of his life, the one who saved his soul from damnation, the one who changed everything.

THE DUKE AND HIS LITTLE – CHAPTER ONE

1820

He crept up behind me. That was always his way. In the six years I had been alive I had learned to have eyes in the back of my head where my brother was concerned but on this occasion my alertness had failed me. There were times when I was able to spot his approach from far off, times also when I was able to sneak away and hide before he managed to reach me. But those times were few and far between compared with the number of occasions when he would pounce upon me before I even knew what was happening. Where he had learned his tracking skills, I do not know, but learned them he had, just as I had learned that life with an older brother was a life of unrelenting misery.

It would perhaps have been easier to bear if my guardians were not so wickedly cruel. My own father and mother had died when I was less than a year old, a shipwreck taking them to a watery grave. I was so young I have no memory of what they looked like. I was not on board the ship when it sank, I had been left home with my nursemaid, a sour faced woman though she had a heart of gold. I am told she cared for me as if I were one of her own whilst the legal machinations took place. Eventually I was housed with my aunt and her husband, they becoming my parents by default and with them I inherited a brother, Jacob, a crueller boy you could never hope to meet.

I did not meet my new brother for some time after moving into Markingham Hall, him being away at a most exclusive school in Europe, St Augustine’s if you have heard of it, perhaps? He returned to these shores for the first time not long after I turned four. I remember that day well even now, after so many years have passed me by. He strode into the house with his chest puffed out and a heavy brown case being carried after him by two panting red faced butlers.

For my part, I was curious as to an older boy appearing in the house. I had been given no warning of his arrival and the sound of his voice brought me to peer out from the nursery at this exotic sight, a human form not towering above me like the giants that ran my life but near enough to my own height, though I was to find he was two years older than me, him being just past his sixth birthday. He saw my head sticking out onto the landing and pointed up at me as Lord and Lady Markingham appeared in the hallway to greet him. “Who is that?” he asked.

“That is your new sister,” Lady Markingham said, turning to look at me with a scowl on her face.

“What is she doing here?”

“It was our Christian duty to take her in.” Lady Markingham neglected to mention that they had been legally bound to become my guardians as my nearest living relatives. The way she worded it suggested an element of charity on their part but as you shall see, there was not a single charitable thing about that entire family.

“Well I shall have to have some sport with her then, won’t I?”

I knew not what he meant by sport though I was to find out soon enough. I had returned to the nursery to play after the hallway emptied and was quietly pottering about with the ancient dolls I had found in there a month earlier. The first I knew of Jacob’s sport was a stinging blow to the back of my head. I had barely time to twist round and find the source of my pain before a boot was placed into the small of my back and I was pinned to the rug like a mouse held down by a playful cat. There was no play about this cat though. The pain grew ever stronger as Jacob pushed his leg down against my spine. “I am the master of this house,” he said, pressing harder. “And do not ever forget that.”

The sheer unexpected nature of the violence threw me. I had done nothing to him yet his first meeting with me was to injure me in body and mind. In the two years between then and the day I met the Duke, I was treated by Jacob as both his toy and his stress relief. He would seek me out when he was angry. He would seek me out when he was bored. And sometimes he would seek me out of sheer spite that I existed at all. I was struck about the head, I had my hair pulled, I had grass and leaves stuffed down my dress, I lost count of the number of times I was tripped over whilst walking through the house.

There was only a single occasion when Jacob was punished for his unwarranted actions and it came from a source entirely unexpected. It was a week after my sixth birthday, the realisation of my aging coming from my maid as the household made no mention of it. Annie was the only personage in the household to treat me with any degree of kindness. To mark the occasion she gave me a book of my own, the first one I had ever been given. Though I forget its content, I recall thanking her and carrying it outside to read by the lake. The summer was fading but the blue skies held enough heat to draw me from the house for a spell. I liked it best down by the lake as neither Jacob nor my parents tended to venture that far from the house.

He must have seen me go and his skills in remaining hidden upon approach meant that I was engrossed in the book when I should perhaps have been more aware of what was going on around me. The first I knew of his arrival was when the book flew out of my hands and into the lake, vanishing below the surface whilst he began to snigger beside me. “Clumsy,” he said with a grin. “You should be more careful.”

You might think me pathetic for not fighting my corner against him especially after my gift was flung away in such an awful manner but you must remember my age and my experience counted against me. I had grown so used to his treatment by then that I had come to believe such behaviour was the most normal thing in the world. I could only enjoy things until he took them away from me, as he had done with my two dolls, slicing them in twain with his pocket knife purely to see me cry at the sight of their dismembered parts scattered across the nursery floor.

If I complained, if I shouted, if heaven forbid, I should fight him, the result would still be the same. I would be punished for my lack of decorum by Lord and Lady Markingham and Jacob would redouble his efforts to torment me in the following days to teach me a lesson in remembering who was in charge. Thus, I did not fight him when he took my book away from me, nor did I fight him when he asked if the book was not as wet as my parents, rotting as they were at the bottom of the ocean. But when he walked over to me and pulled back his leg to kick me, I could not help but grab his foot. It was an automatic movement, one over which I had no conscious control. His boot came towards me and I caught it, holding onto it for dear life.

He laughed. He laughed at my pathetic effort to prevent his blow from landing. With a shove of his hand, he pushed me onto my back before gripping my dress in his hands, hoisting me into the air. “I wonder if perhaps you would like to continue reading your book?” he asked, twisting me in his hands until I was facing him. He smiled suddenly, a pleasant smile. It happened occasionally, often after he had beaten me. He would become the friendliest fellow you could imagine, providing me with sweets, tickling me until I giggled, and whenever he was about to be nice to me, the smile preceded it.

“Yes please, Jacob,” I replied, hoping perhaps that he might wade in and retrieve the book. If the pages could be dried before the sun began to set, it might once again be readable, all might not be lost.

“Then you can go and get it,” he said, swinging me back behind him and at once I knew what he meant to do.

“No,” I screamed. “I cannot swim. Please, Jacob. I cannot swim.”

“Then you had better learn quickly.” He swung me out towards the water and his grip upon me began to loosen. You can imagine the panic which tore through me. I had no idea of the depth of the lake, I only knew that the strength of his throw was likely to send me out far enough that I would sink like a stone into the tangling green weeds which lay half visible beneath the surface. If I was to become entangled in them, I would never make it to the shore again. I screamed so loudly, the ducks on the far side of the lake took off en masse. As they flew upwards, time seemed to slow until I could make out each wing flapping, I could even have counted their number if so inclined. Still I was being moved through the air, my eyes turning to the water. In a moment he would let go and I would drown and my short life would be over before it had barely had chance to begin.

But just as his fingers loosened their grip on my dress, I saw a blur of movement to my left. A figure, moving so fast I barely saw it, appeared beside us. It gave Jacob the heartiest of shoves. He lost his balance and his grip on me at the same moment. I fell forwards, landing on the grass just inches from the edge of the water. As I thudded into the ground I caught sight of Jacob vanishing under the surface of the lake. The shove had sent him toppling over his own feet and he splashed down into the depths.

He emerged a second later, gasping for air, clawing for the bank. He pulled himself onto the grass and began coughing, spitting out lumps of weeds which sat glistening in the sunshine. I turned from him to observe my saviour and found myself looking at a boy older than both myself and Jacob. He was wearing a pair of soaking wet shorts, his skin likewise was dripping and his hair clung to his head. He had clearly been swimming in our lake but who on earth was he?

The boy walked away, ignoring Jacob who hurled curses at his retreating form. I watched the boy as he moved towards the edge of the lake. Jacob was already storming off towards the house, making the most violent of threats towards the world in general and me in particular. The boy gave me a final wave before diving into the water and swimming away with a firm motion. Who he was, I had no idea at the time. My only thought was that whoever he was, he was my hero.

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